Box Score Lacey, WA - The Simon Fraser University Clan women's basketball team dropped a hard fought game to first place Saint Martin's 73-71 on the road Thursday night.

After battling back from an eleven point deficit in the second half, the Clan and Saints would go back-and-forth over the final seven minutes in a high scoring affair.

"We had a combination of misfortunes and carelessness and did not take care of the ball," said Head Coach Bruce Langford on the loss. "Our free throw shooting hurt us and our turnovers really hurt us."

The Clan shot 73 percent from the free throw line in the game compared to 93 percent by Saint Martin's and turned the ball over 26 times while the Saints had 20 turnovers.

Trailing 54-43 eight minutes into the second half, the Clan began to claw back as junior guard Erin Chambers (Mission, BC) would work down low in the post for the basket, and then fellow guard Marie-Line Petit (Bergeronnes, QB), would make one of her three, three-pointers on the night off of a steal to make the score 54-48.

Petit finished with nine points on three-of-five shooting from behind the arc.

Minutes later, Petit made her final three-pointer to pull the Clan within three as Saint Martin's led 56-53. After another stop on defence, Chambers would score two of her game high 25 points to have the Clan down just one point.

Keeping the momentum and clamping down on defence, freshman Ariana Sider (New Westminster, BC) drained a three-pointer of her own to give SFU the 58-56 lead.

The Saints would take back the lead, 59-58, but senior forward Chelsea Reist (Mission, BC) would get it right back for the Clan on a jumper, giving SFU a one-point cushion. Then junior Katie Lowen (Lethbridge, AB) followed that up with a three-pointer to make the score 63-59 SFU.

Lowen ended the game with 15 points, five rebounds and four steals finishing second to Chambers in scoring.

Each time Saint Martin's would close in, SFU would pull back up by three, until Megan Wiedeman would capitalize off of a Clan turnover, making the basket, plus free throw, to tie the game at 69.

Again capitalizing on Clan turnovers, Saint Martin's was able to take a 73-69 lead, before SFU scored a basket with less than a second left in the game, making the final 73-71.

"They came out and played zone and I thought we did a good job finding the open player," said Langford. "We made out shots. Then they switched it up to man and we took some fouls and gave them a little bit of the momentum."

Freshman Ellen Kett (Niddrie, Australia) led the Clan in assists with six and sophomore Meg Wilson (London, ON) had a team high seven rebounds. The Clan shot 39.1 percent from behind the arc and outrebounded the Saints 33-31, including 15-12 on the offensive boards.

SFU's record now sits at 9-5 and 3-3 in Great Northwest Athletic Conference play.

The Clan will travel to Monmouth, OR on Saturday where they will face Western Oregon at 5:15 p.m.

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